Ismene
- A dark night. Esperanza attempts to commit suicide. That's not very hopeful.
- Estevan and Taylor wait together while Mattie takes Esperanza to a clinic. Taylor tries to fill the silence by talking about a high school classmate of hers who committed suicide. Great comforting method, Taylor.
- After a prolonged silence, Estevan starts to talk about torture methods used by the police in Guatemala. It's pretty shocking to Taylor: it has never occurred to her that such things could be done to real people, in real life.
- That's what she gets for telling him a suicide story when he probably wanted to get his mind off it.
- Estevan tells Taylor that he and Esperanza had a daughter named Ismene. Turtle looks very much like her. Ismene was taken away from them, "in a raid on their neighborhood in which Esperanza's brother and two friends were killed" (9.46).
- More history from Estevan: he and Esperanza were members of a teacher's union, one that the Guatemalan government wanted to root out and destroy. Because he and Esperanza knew the names of seventeen other union members, Ismene was taken as bait to tempt them into coming after her so that they could be captured in the attempt. Yeah, it's pretty freaky.
- Taylor cries openly as Estevan explains all of this. Turtle hears her and comes in to snuggle. Which is probably cuddlier than an actual turtle.
- After Taylor puts Turtle back to bed, she and Estevan continue to talk. Estevan tells Taylor that he takes some comfort from knowing that Ismene has probably been adopted and is being raised by a couple in the government or military. We wouldn't dare think that it's actually Turtle.
- Taylor and Estevan sit up together until they are both drifting in and out of sleep.
- At some point in the night, Taylor wakes up and finds herself lying curled up with Estevan on the couch.
- She kisses his hand, gets up, and goes to her room to spend the rest of the night in her own bed.